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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23378992">Inevitable</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloe_we_were_robbed/pseuds/bechloe_we_were_robbed'>bechloe_we_were_robbed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pitch Perfect (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Beca Mitchell &amp; Jesse Swanson Friendship, Beca and Chloe are so soft and in love okay?!, Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell Fluff, Established Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell, F/F, Jesse-centric - Freeform, because ew, i swear this isn't a jeca fic, references to past jeca though</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:27:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,266</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23378992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloe_we_were_robbed/pseuds/bechloe_we_were_robbed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse runs into Beca in New York.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>140</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Inevitable</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey guys! Being an NHS worker means I'm still going to work through this lockdown/global pandemic business but I've been trying to finally finish some WIPs I've had sitting in my drafts when I do have free time, so here's a short little Jesse-centric fic. Second fic ever, so comments and criticisms welcomed and appreciated :) Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jesse smiled to himself as he looked around, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of New York as he strolled through Central Park on his lunch break. He loved the city, how it was always full of life and there was music in everything from the honk of car horns to the sounds of birds and kids laughing in the park. </p>
<p>He loved Los Angeles too, where he had settled several years before and was now working as a film scorer, but New York would always be a place he loved to visit, much as he was in the city now for a short business trip. He enjoyed the travel, but he was glad it was a relatively infrequent part of his work. He missed home when he was gone, especially when he had to travel alone. The hotel beds always felt too cold and too big, and room service and takeout got old pretty quick.</p>
<p>He loved his career. It was a lifelong dream and he couldn’t imagine ever doing anything else. It was hard, sure, and often it ate up his time to such an extent that it put a strain on his personal relationships, but they always made it work, and it had never dulled his passion. Whenever he watched the finished product, watched the audience react to his music, how it stirred up emotions in them and turned memorable scenes into unforgettable ones, he knew it was worth it. He would forever be grateful for the internship in his final year of college that had brought him here.</p>
<p>He supposed Barden University is where it had all begun. He had known before college that he loved music and singing and movies. But Barden had brought him friendships that he knew were for life; it had given him the Trebles, which had only enhanced and renewed his love of music.</p>
<p>It had brought him his best friend Benji and the rest of the Trebles, whom he still thought of as his brothers - with the exception of Bumper, who was still too much of a douche to be considered even a friend. </p>
<p>It had given him drive and determination and shown him what hard work really meant. </p>
<p>It had brought him the Professor who recommended the internship to him and provided the glowing reference that had secured him a spot. </p>
<p>It had brought him Beca.</p>
<p>He hadn’t expected to find love at college. He hadn’t expected a 5’2” bundle of sarcasm and eyeliner and swagger to come in and change his life. Beca had been a total surprise. She opened up parts of himself that he hadn’t known existed and even though she thought movies were lame and was sarcastic and grumpy half the time, the other half she was funny, and driven, and passionate, and more talented than even some of the people he worked with professionally now.</p>
<p>Things hadn’t worked out with them romantically, but she had still changed his life for the better. She was the one who encouraged him to apply for the internship and made him believe he was good enough to get it. She had endured countless movie nights, even though she didn’t enjoy them, because he loved them. </p>
<p>He knew how hard she had tried to make it work. He had seen it. But at the end of the day, you couldn’t make yourself love someone. She obviously loved him a lot as friends and maybe she had liked him romantically in the beginning, but he had always known deep down that he was the only one in their relationship who was in love. </p>
<p>He had thought about Beca now and again over the years, and he found himself wondering about her now. What she was doing, where she had ended up, if she had found someone, if she was happy. All he had ever wanted for her was for her to find happiness, and he hoped she had.</p>
<p>His musings were interrupted suddenly by a body colliding with his. He had been so caught up in his head that he hadn’t noticed the brunette woman coming towards him, coffee in hand, until he felt the hot liquid splashing onto his crisp white shirt and heard a cry of, “Shit, dude!”</p>
<p>He recognized that voice. He’d recognize that voice anywhere, even after all these years. But it couldn’t be, could it? It couldn’t be- “Beca?!”</p>
<p>The woman’s head shot up from where she had been patting her own clothes dry with a napkin. Her eyes widened once they looked at each other. “Jesse?! Dude, what’re you doing here? I thought you were in LA?” Beca’s tone was full of surprise and confusion, but she was smiling, and he mirrored her with a grin of his own.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I am but I had to come to NYC for a work thing. This is my last day, actually. See, I told you endings were the best part.” She laughed, shaking her head. She’d always scoffed when he said it back in college, and clearly now was not any different. They stood in silence, staring at each other, for several moments until he decided one of them should break the silence. “So, what’re you doing here?” He gestured around them, at the kids’ play area they were standing beside and at the city as a whole. </p>
<p>“Well, I’m here,” she replied, mimicking his gesture meant to encompass the entire city, “because I live here. I found something worth staying for and got the opportunity to produce in NYC and that’s been going really well, so I stayed here. As for here,” she again repeated his gesture to indicate their exact location, “I’m meeting someone. Thought I’d get a coffee since I had time, but you see how that ended up.” She gestured toward his coffee stained shirt and her own floaty burgundy shirt, also sporting a sizeable wet patch. She threw the now-empty coffee cup and napkins in the trash to emphasize her point.</p>
<p>He grimaced apologetically. “Yeah, I’m so sorry about that.” </p>
<p>She waved his apology off. “It’s cool, it happens. I’m meant to be cutting down anyway, so.” She shrugged. “Anyway, how’re you doing? Still with Sophie?” The question was light and curious. She sounded genuinely interested, not like she was prying or invested in the answer beyond catching up on where he was at in life. It was the same kind of detachment he felt; it was wanting to catch up with an old friend after a long time, all trace of his romantic feelings gone completely, as they had been for a long time.</p>
<p>He smiled and nodded, holding his left hand up to gesture to his wedding band. Part of his reasoning for breaking up with Beca back in the day – a fact he had shared with her, in the interest of full disclosure –had been an interest in pursuing a relationship with Sophie, a girl he had met whilst doing his internship and had found himself getting really close to. Nothing had ever gone beyond the platonic while he was with Beca, but things had gone that way quickly after the breakup and they’d been together ever since. “Going on a year now,” he replied happily. He thanked her when she congratulated him on his marriage and then asked, “What about you?”</p>
<p>To his surprise, Beca held up her own left hand to reveal a sparkling engagement ring and wedding band, pointing at both with a huge grin on her face. “Going on seven.” </p>
<p>He felt his eyes widen. They had broken up just after college which was about eight years ago. This guy must have been pretty spectacular to get Beca Mitchell to commit that quickly when they had been together nearly four years and she’d straight up refused to talk about marriage aside from shutting the idea down. She was loyal and it wasn’t like she was a commitment-phobe, but he knew that she had to feel one hundred percent sure about something before she would commit like that. Jesse knew now that she had never indulged marriage conversation with him because they weren’t right for each other. Their relationship had been great for that stage of their lives, but that was it. “Wow, congrats! He must be some guy.”</p>
<p>“It’s a she, actually,” she corrected. </p>
<p>He’d known Beca was bisexual, but it was still unexpected to hear she had a wife instead of a husband, though he immediately felt bad that it was surprising. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to assume.”</p>
<p>“It’s cool. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.” She shrugged. He wondered how often people made the same assumption. </p>
<p>“So, tell me about your girl. What’s she like?”</p>
<p>Beca looked back at him with a small smile that soon grew into a grin as she got a faraway look on her face. “She’s…incredible, dude.” He grinned back at her, the obvious joy radiating off Beca spreading to him. He had never seen her look so full of adoration and happiness; the closest comparison was when her mixes were played on the college radio for the first time, but even that wasn’t such a joyous expression. “It’s like, I always felt like something was missing and I never knew what it was until I met her. She’s kind and generous and she loves music as much as I do and connects to it in the same way. She teaches elementary school and sometimes I get to sit and watch her and the way her face lights up and how passionate she is, and it’s like I fall in love with her all over again.” </p>
<p>He thought Beca was at her most animated when she was talking about music; it was clear now that he thought that only because he had never seen her talk about her wife before. </p>
<p>“She’s always there for me and always encouraging me and she makes me better, because it’s like I want to be the best person I can be for her, because she deserves the world. You know? She’s, like, the sweetest song that I’ve been playing on repeat for years and still can’t get out of my head and…” She took a deep breath. “…aaand I’m rambling. I’m sorry.” She paused to laugh at herself, shaking her head as she looked down at her shoes before making eye contact with him again to conclude her thoughts. “She just…makes me so happy, Jess.” He smiled at her. The look on her face and the love filling her voice as she talked about her said it all. “I didn’t know I could be this happy. You could take away everything else in my life but as long as she was still in it, if I still had my family…I’d be happy. You know?”</p>
<p>Jesse did know. It was how he felt with Sophie, and why he knew without a doubt she was the one that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He had been sad when he and Beca had broken up after college, but clearly it had been necessary for them both to find their soulmates. He was pretty sure Beca would scoff and roll her eyes if he mentioned the word soulmates to her but like it or not, it was exactly what she’d described, and he was glad they had both found them. “Yeah, I know.” </p>
<p>They stood opposite each other just smiling as they each thought about their respective partners, lost in their own worlds for several moments. Jesse was about to ask more about her life and her work as a producer in the city when a child’s cry of, “Mama!” came from behind him and all of a sudden, Beca’s face transformed again into the same kind of love and excitement she’d had when talking about her wife as she crouched down to catch a little boy in her arms. She picked him up and peppered his face in kisses as he squirmed, giggling and saying, “Mama!” as he wrapped his little arms around Beca’s neck. </p>
<p>Jesse watched on in shock at the reunion between Beca and the small boy who was evidently her son. He'd never seen her with kids, not to mention that he’d never seen her so affectionate with anyone. The way she’d been with Chloe in college was a close second, but even with her it had seemed like Beca was holding something back; that she was being careful, in the way she’d let a hand drift to her lower back when they hugged and then abruptly look embarrassed for having done so, or how she’d stare at Chloe for a beat too long before dragging her eyes away. </p>
<p> Obviously, a lot had changed in eight years. </p>
<p>They had mutually decided to delete and block each other on all social media when they broke up, to make it easier on them, and his own rules to never look her up anywhere else on the internet meant he had never seen any mention of Beca in any context. He’d thought about re-adding her in the first year but after that, he really hadn’t given much thought to it and in all honesty, he had sort of forgotten that they weren’t in touch anymore. It meant that he had literally known nothing about her life, and the revelations of the last few minutes of her living in New York, having a wife and now, a child, had been a huge surprise to him. </p>
<p>After a few moments, she moved the boy to rest on her hip and reached her free hand out with a grin. It was only then that he registered the arrival of another person behind him and watched as Beca put the hand on their waist and pulled who he assumed must be her wife into a kiss. Just when he thought nothing more could surprise him that afternoon their kiss ended, and they separated just enough that Jesse could see Beca’s wife’s face. </p>
<p>He had seen the red hair and in the back of his mind, he knew as soon as she arrived. He’d known before, really; he had always thought there was something between them at college but when Beca had started dating him, he figured either she had made her choice, or he was mistaken. Clearly, he was sort of right on both counts. She may have chosen him then, but it was obvious he wasn’t mistaken about her feelings and that she had chosen her since. </p>
<p>They were standing close and looking into each other’s eyes when Beca greeted her. “Hey, babe. Look who I ran into.” Beca gestured towards him, drawing the eyes of both the little boy in her arms, with the same dark eyes as Beca, and the familiar bright blue eyes of Chloe Beale. </p>
<p>Chloe smiled, a surprised but undoubtedly pleased smile, as she turned to him. She had always been so nice; it sucked to think about how sad she must have been in college when he and Beca were together. She looked as if she was about to hug him – which he wouldn’t have been opposed to, since he had always gotten along with her and liked her a lot – stopping at the last minute and gesturing towards his coffee stained shirt. He and Beca both chuckled in response. “Yeah, we literally ran into each other. I have your wife to thank for my impending dry-cleaning bill.” Her wife. Her wife Beca, his college girlfriend. Life sure was crazy.</p>
<p>She turned to Beca, who had been chatting happily to their son as he spoke to Chloe. Beca looked back with a sheepish expression. “Coffee?”</p>
<p>“It’s only my second today, Chlo, I swear. I had time to kill.” </p>
<p>Jesse felt like there was a story here he was missing out on. It had been a familiar feeling back in college, like Beca and Chloe were in their own little world that no one else was privy to. Chloe sighed and shook her head, letting it go, and turned back to Jesse. “So, what’re you doing in New York?” </p>
<p>He gave her the same explanation he had given Beca, adding, “Beca was telling me all about her awesome wife and how much she loves her before you arrived.” They shared a loving smile at this, lost in each other. “But she didn’t mention anything about this handsome little guy,” he added with a grin at the boy, who smiled back at him. Jesse sensed perhaps he had inherited Chloe’s outgoing personality rather than Beca’s hesitance around new people.</p>
<p>They both looked down at their son with adoring smiles and Beca made introductions. “This little dude is our son Carter. Carter, this is Mama’s friend Jesse. Can you say hi?”</p>
<p>“Hi, Mr Jesse.” Carter held his hand out for a fist bump and Jesse laughed as he returned it. He guessed he’d picked that up from his mama. </p>
<p>“Nice to meet you, Carter.”</p>
<p>“This is my baby brother or sister,” he added, putting a small hand on Chloe’s stomach. Jesse had been so caught up in his surprise at the reveal of Beca’s wife’s identity that he hadn’t even noticed the small but prominent bump Chloe was sporting. “We don’t know yet. Mama and Mommy want it to be a surprise.” </p>
<p>Jesse looked up at Beca and Chloe, eyes flitting between them before settling on Beca, who smoothed the palm of her free left hand over Chloe’s stomach and then looped it around her waist to pull her closer. The smile on her face was indescribably radiant. It was the physical, real-world embodiment of the heart eyes emoji and it reminded him of the way lovers looked at each other in the classic movies before the dramatic kiss or declaration of love, music swelling into a triumphant crescendo as it played over the scene.</p>
<p>“Bec! Congratulations, you guys! Two kids, wow.” </p>
<p>“Thanks, we’re really excited,” Beca answered, Chloe echoing her thanks as she kissed her wife on the cheek with a beaming smile of her own. </p>
<p>Jesse had asked Beca about marriage and children when they were in college, and at the time Beca had always been dismissive and negative; ‘not for me’, ‘be responsible for another human being? No thanks’, ‘after my fucked-up childhood? No way.’ So needless to say, it had been a surprise to learn that she had one kid and another on the way, and although he was hurt that her lack of desire for children and marriage in college had been because she didn’t want it with him, he could see how happy and good she was as a mom. </p>
<p>Sometimes it wasn’t about not wanting kids and marriage, it was about not wanting those things with the wrong person.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Jesse and Beca hadn’t ended up married with aca-children. It wasn’t inevitable.</p>
<p>But Beca and Chloe were, in a way he hadn’t always been willing to admit, even though the signs were always there.</p>
<p>And as he watched Beca and Chloe walk away, their son walking between them holding one of each of his moms’ hands, and Beca moved from smiling down at her son – their son – with a kind of tenderness and love he’d never seen on her face before, and looked up to give her wife the same look of adoration…it was clearer than ever that it was Beca and Chloe who were meant to get the happy, movie ending.</p>
<p>It was Beca and Chloe who were inevitable.</p>
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